Oksa pollock, p.25
Oksa Pollock, page 25
She sat up in her armchair, feeling vexed, and called to her faithful companion.
“My Lunatrix, what’s your take on this?” she asked the chubby-cheeked steward at her side. “Whether I like it or not, Mortimer has a Gracious Heart.”
She mechanically ran her hands through her hair to push it off her face.
“And no one with a Gracious Heart can keep anything secret from you, can they?” she asked.
The Lunatrix sniffed noisily, eyes wide as saucers, and agreed.
“My Gracious makes communication of a fact stuffed with exactitude: her domestic staff possesses this ability, the reading of Gracious Hearts does not encounter any impediment.”
He fell silent, standing perfectly still, and waited. As did Oksa, who didn’t react for a few seconds: the Lunatrix only answered the questions he was asked—which is just what he’d done, no more and no less.
“What is Mortimer doing in Thousandeye City? Tell me that, please, my Lunatrix.”
The little creature squirmed, shifting from one foot to another, which put Oksa on tenterhooks.
“My Gracious encounters the need to receive the assurance that the Squoracles possess the correct words in their beaks: the son of the hated Felon hides no ugly intentions in his heart. Has my Gracious performed the conservation of the memory of the execrable Island of the Felons and the Great Council Meeting of the abhorrent Ocious when the Runaways arrived in Edefia?”
“Of course I remember!”
“Has she proceeded to the safeguarding of her impression with regard to the son of the hated Felon?”
Oksa narrowed her eyes and tapped the armrests with her fingertips.
“Mortimer looked extremely ill at ease during the first Council Meeting,” she acknowledged, thinking back. “I didn’t think he agreed with what his father and grandfather were saying and doing. He looked miserable too. I even thought to myself that he must be missing his mother badly, like me,” she added, her voice breaking.
“Veracity fills the words of my Gracious,” agreed the Lunatrix solemnly. “Since Reminiscens attacked him on the island in the Sea of the Hebrides, the son of the hated Felon has endured possession of the knowledge of paternal sentiment towards him.”
“I never had a great relationship with Mortimer, to say the least,” admitted Oksa. “But Orthon has treated him so badly. He preferred to battle it out with Reminiscens instead of saving his own son. All he was interested in was beating his sister! He didn’t care what happened to Mortimer.”
“The judgement of my Gracious encounters hypertrophy.”
Oksa’s face dimpled with amusement as she looked quizzically at him.
“My judgement is hypertrophic?” she asked. “Do you mean I’m exaggerating?”
“That is the significance of the words of your domestic staff.”
Gently Oksa stroked the large head of the Lunatrix, whose skin had gone an incredible crimson.
“Exaggerate? Me? How could you think such a thing?” she asked playfully.
“My Gracious has doubtless preserved in her memory the emotion of the hated Felon when his sister made known the utterance of threats: the death of Mortimer in exchange for the death of Jan, the son of Reminiscens and Leomido despatched because of Orthon. The evocation of this retaliation caused colossal emotion in the hated Felon.”
“Colossal emotion that he took great care not to show!” retorted Oksa. “He certainly didn’t do very much to save Mortimer. It seemed to me that he was making it a point of honour not to give anything away.”
The Lunatrix looked disconcerted.
“You know better than me, though,” admitted Oksa. “In any case, I can understand Mortimer that might feel a bit… confused. Realizing that his father will always put his personal ambitions above his own family is bound to wreak havoc with the way he thinks.”
She sighed, feeling genuinely sorry for Mortimer.
“Do you think he wants to join us?”
“It is the most immense wish in his heart,” nodded the Lunatrix.
Oksa slumped back in her armchair. This totally unexpected situation was complicated, but everything was pointing towards that conclusion. Although, deep down, she couldn’t help feeling wary.
“Why did he sneak in, then?” she exclaimed suddenly. “He could have come to us openly, instead of confiding in Tugdual.”
The Lunatrix fiddled with the straps of his dungarees.
“Courage made the encounter of a deficit in his heart,” he replied. “His identity and his family connections overwhelm the son of the hated Felon with a burden that prevented the publication of his visit. Only the Beloved of my Gracious possessed the ability to take delivery of trust.”
“Where is he now?”
“The son of the hated Felon has performed his repatriation with his ancestors and the Felon army in the Peak Ridge Mountains, inside the troglodytic caves filled with precious stones. His absence knew brevity, and the perception of a suspicion experiences nonexistence.”
“So much the better,” murmured Oksa.
Around her, the thick canvas of the tent swelled with the morning breeze like a human body gently breathing. For a moment Oksa fixed her slate-grey eyes on the swaying coloured-glass lanterns as they cast haloes of light in all directions. She gnawed at a nail, unable to break her lifelong habit. Her Lunatrix came over and lightly stroked her arm.
“My Gracious has possession of an idea behind her brain,” he announced confidently.
Oksa jumped, roused from her thoughts by her small steward’s shrill voice.
“Exactly, my Lunatrix!” she said, jumping to her feet.
Hurriedly, she pushed aside the heavy curtain over the entrance to the tent and resolutely strode out.
45
INTERROGATIONS
“WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING THERE, INCOMPETENT?” The lethargic creature was ambling around in the ground-floor lobby of the Glass Column, absorbed in contemplation of a small brioche stuffed with pink berries.
“I think I’m a little lost,” it replied, gazing at its cake as if it were a priceless jewel.
“You’re not supposed to leave my apartment!” said Oksa.
There was an edge of concern in her voice and eyes. The Lunatrix positioned himself in front of the Incompetent, which had started to nibble its pastry.
“Your presence down here requires justification,” he said sternly.
“A charming young man kindly told me to go down to the forty-seventh floor for this brioche,” explained the Incompetent. “Wasn’t that nice of him?”
Taken aback, Oksa stooped down to the creature’s level. She put her hands on its sloping shoulders and, trying not to shake it, fired a volley of worried questions at it.
“A young man, you say? What young man? What did he look like? Do you know him? Who was it?”
Her mind was working overtime and one name popped into her head: Mortimer. Which, indirectly, meant Orthon… Unfortunately, the slow-witted Incompetent was far from able to match her mental prowess, as she could see from its vacant stare, although it did manage to come up with a faltering answer of sorts:
“I think I’ve seen him before, yes. His hair was black and so were his clothes… unless they were grey… or blue…”
Delighted to give such “decisive” help, it beamed at Oksa with astounding optimism. Oksa was gripped with worry.
“What then?” she whispered. “What happened next?”
“I went there.”
“You went where?”
“To the forty-seventh floor, of course!” replied the Incompetent. “You don’t seem very quick on the uptake.”
In other circumstances, Oksa would have burst out laughing.
“When I came out of the lift, I saw a brioche in a pretty little dish on the floor. I thought how lucky I was—it’s not every day you find delicious cakes like this on the floor.”
The Lunatrix lifted his eyes heavenwards.
“But I thought the young man told you where the brioche was!” cried Oksa in astonishment.
The Incompetent stopped eating for a moment, and said offhandedly:
“Oh yes, you’re right… then, as I didn’t know where I’d come from, I couldn’t find my way back.”
“What about the young man in black?”
“Oh, he stayed in your apartment.”
Oksa groaned with annoyance.
“What! He stayed in my apartment? No one is allowed to be there without my permission. Don’t tell me you opened the door for him?”
“I opened the door when he knocked, of course I did.”
“I don’t believe it,” wailed Oksa.
“I did, I assure you!”
“And you didn’t close it again behind you when you went out, did you?”
The Incompetent searched its hazy memory, but couldn’t find an answer.
“Was this long ago?” continued Oksa.
“Perhaps…”
“Brilliant!” she groaned, with a grimace.
“Do you think so?” replied the Incompetent guilelessly. “Well, that’s all right then.”
Oksa grabbed its free limb and pulled it towards the glass lift with the Lunatrix trotting behind.
When they reached the fifty-fifth floor of the Column, she shot out of the lift into the corridor, Granok-Shooter in hand, then screeched to a halt in surprise.
“Tugdual?”
He spun round, his eyes cold and tortured, then, a fraction of a second later, he was smiling, even more enigmatically than ever.
“Are you going to attack me, Lil’ Gracious?” he asked when he spotted Oksa’s Granok-Shooter.
Awkwardly, she returned the magical blowpipe to the bag strung across her shoulder.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Yes, what are you doing here?” repeated the Incompetent.
Oksa looked at it in dismay, while the Lunatrix tugged it towards the Gracious’s apartment.
“I was waiting for you,” replied Tugdual, coming nearer. “I miss you.”
He could see how agitated Oksa was.
“Aren’t you going to let me in?”
Oksa pressed her hand against the door to activate the digital control mechanism, reminding her, as it did every time she used it, of her amazement at the double-bass case that had led to Dragomira’s strictly private workroom.
“Have you seen anyone hanging around up here?” she asked, walking into her apartment.
“Up here? You mean, on the top floor?”
With a lump in her throat, Oksa nodded “yes” as she let Tugdual inside.
“No,” he replied. “But I’ve only just got here.”
He wrapped his arms tightly around her and she didn’t resist, her mind in a whirl, although she couldn’t help inspecting the apartment, scanning the room like a radar. The Ptitchkins, which had just woken up, were stretching in the tiny nest they’d built in a cavity of the mosaic wall.
Farther away, with its hair standing on end, the Getorix was puffing and panting as it did its daily press-ups. Nothing unusual there. Over Tugdual’s shoulder, her eyes suddenly alighted on her desk. The Pulsatilla was asleep and snoring gently beside the shimmering crystal Elzevir and her heart missed a beat.
“What an idiot I am!” she growled to herself. “I forgot to put it back in the Memorary. I’m such a moron.”
“What’s wrong, my Lil’ Gracious?” asked Tugdual, stroking her hair.
Oksa pulled away from his embrace and went over to the bay window overlooking Thousandeye City. On the way, she glanced at her desk and the Gracious register. The chair was as she’d left it, the stylus lying diagonally on the Elzevir, the saucer half filled with pistachios… everything looked in order, although this didn’t entirely put her mind at rest.
She stood there for a moment with her back to the room without saying a word, while Tugdual sat down silently in an armchair. Then she turned round to face him, her eyes bright.
“What did Mortimer want?” she asked, her voice surprisingly steady.
Tugdual flinched. He leant his head back, avoiding her penetrating gaze.
“How did you know?” he asked quietly.
“Don’t forget I’m the Gracious,” retorted Oksa. “The problem isn’t how I know, but why I wasn’t told in the first place.”
The slight trembling of her hands and lips was nothing compared to the storm raging inside her.
Tugdual sat up and, with his elbows on his knees, looked deep into Oksa’s eyes. Only the resentment and doubt she was feeling allowed her to endure the intensity of his gaze.
“Mortimer wants to join us,” he said steadily.
“How can we be sure he’s sincere?” Oksa asked in reply.
“You know he is—after all, he managed to gain entrance to Thousandeye City.”
Oksa took a deep breath. Everyone, including her Squoracles and her Lunatrix, kept harping on about this fact, but it didn’t help her shake the nagging feeling of uncertainty at the back of her mind.
“Why didn’t he stay, then?” she asked.
“Would we have happily accepted him as one of us?” replied Tugdual.
Oksa glared at him. When would he stop answering her questions with more questions?
“We accepted Reminiscens and Zoe,” she said, “and, more recently, Annikki.”
“You know very well it’s not the same. Anyway, Mortimer is more useful to us where he is, believe me.”
“Can I?” Oksa couldn’t help asking.
Tugdual’s face tensed.
“Can you what?” he replied.
“Believe you.”
Those two words began a battle of wills—which of them would look away first? For several long seconds Tugdual seemed to have the upper hand, but Oksa stood firm. She had to know, and it was now or never.
Without taking his eyes off her, Tugdual stood up and, despite the feline fluidity of his movements, Oksa shivered.
“You want proof?” asked Tugdual.
Oksa nodded.
“Wait here, I’ll be back.”
Two minutes later he was knocking at the door. Oksa opened it with undeniable impatience.
“This will put an end to your doubts,” he said.
He knelt down in front of a coffee table and set down a wooden tube the size of a bottle sealed both ends with a cork. He removed one of the corks.
“What is it?” asked Oksa, kneeling beside him.
Tugdual picked up the tube and poured the contents on the table, as carefully as if he were handling something breakable. But it was just blades of grass. Dark green, shiny, fleshy blades of grass which resembled chives.
“I… I don’t understand,” faltered Oksa.
Tugdual picked up one of the stalks fanned out on the table and offered it to her. She looked at him enquiringly.
“Mortimer has given us this as proof of his integrity.”
Oksa gasped with surprise and incomprehension.
“Grass? As proof of his integrity? You’ve got to be kidding!”
“It’s Lasonillia, Oksa,” broke in Tugdual. “The plant that will prevent your mother from dying.”
Wide-eyed, Oksa took the sprig Tugdual was holding out to her.
And plunged into a spinning black hole.
46
ABANDONED
THE SMELL OF DAMP MINGLED WITH FRESHLY PREPARED coffee immediately filled her nostrils when her Identego deposited her on the first-floor landing of the house in Bigtoe Square, while her head and heart were filled with a familiar melancholy song, ‘Summer’s Gone’ by Placebo.
You try to break the mould
Before you get too old
You try to break the mould
Before you die.
Cue to your face so forsaken
Crushed by the way that you cry
Cue to your face so forsaken
Saying goodbye.
Drawn like iron to a magnet, Oksa headed for the room which had been—and still was—her bedroom. Having no physical substance, she was able to pass through walls and quickly found herself beside Gus, whom she wasn’t surprised to find there.
It looked like things had improved since her last visit. The house was more comfortable, the electricity was back on, the kitsch wallpaper had been stripped and replaced by white paint, and the floors had been cleaned of the layers of mud left behind by the numerous floods.
Gus, on the other hand, didn’t look great. His tee-shirt did nothing to hide his thinness—he was even scrawnier than the last time Oksa had seen him. His face was emaciated, his cheeks hollow and his eyes darkened by intense physical pain and the fear of certain death.
“Gus… God… what’s happened to you?” murmured Oksa, standing beside the bed on which he was lying.
His hair, just as black, fell to his shoulders and this detail sent Oksa into a panic. How much time had gone by? How many months? She glanced out of the window and almost fainted. The trees in the square were covered with leaves, the sun was shining and, if she thought about it, the temperature was quite mild—warm, even.
It was the middle of summer.
At least eight months had gone by since they’d passed through the Portal.
She shook her head. The weeks in Edefia had been months on the Outside. And time was not on Gus’s side… Oksa jumped onto the bed and folded her legs under her. She leant towards him, nearer than she would ever have dared if she’d really been at his side.
“You have to hang in there. That’s an order!” she shouted, hoping with all her might that he’d hear her message.
The room was filled with the sound of sad guitar music.
You try to break the mould
Before you get too old
You try to break the mould
Before you die.
Cue to your face so forsaken
Crushed by the way that you cry
Cue to your face so forsaken
Saying goodbye.
